You’ve found the official ‘wed’ site of the Spokanites, the web’s most rockin’ band (not really a band) centered around two people’s (Sonya Zilka and Robert Hylton) attempt at an unorthodox wedding and series of visits to see our friends around the globe. Hopefully you found us here because you are one of our closest friends and you’ve been invited to join us along the way. If not, enjoy the concept and feel free to play along.

The Spokanites are Sonya Zilka and Robert Hylton, and if we may be so bold, we think the story about how this ‘band’ formed is a good one. We are both from Spokane, Washington and amazingly, we met on a bus in Sri Lanka! It was February 2006 and we were supporting Room to Read, a non-profit that builds schools and libraries in developing countries. It was crazy to think that two people from a small town in the US could find themselves on the same bus almost as far away from Spokane as you can get (literally). But wait, there’s more…

Only after several hours of annoying our fellow passengers with talk of ‘Spoke-Angeles’ and other dribble did we find out we were both living in Hong Kong at the time and we lived walking distance from each other. It expanded from there: we had been at the same parties but not met, we had friends in common but never knew each other, Sonya owned a painting that Robert had almost bought during a trip to Vietnam, and so on. The list is way too long to put here, but to put it simply, fate had intervened and whether or not we liked each other, we had to at least try this out. The rest is history…

After a fantasy year in Hong Kong that led us on crazy adventures throughout Asia, Sonya joined a new record label (got a new job) and we packed our bags for Seattle where we started our version of ‘settling down.’ Settled we haven’t been, continuing the global nomadic nature of this group by visiting places like Belize, Ireland, India, Argentina, Uruguay, Tibet, Nepal, and even Burley, Idaho. Speaking of India, while overlooking the Taj Mahal in November 2008, Robert suggested a full-time collaborative relationship with Sonya by proposing marriage with a $39.00 fake diamond – the Spokanites had formed.

And that leads us to now, where the Spokanites are about to tie the knot and take the show to the world to share the joy with our friends. We look forward to seeing you all on the road in 2010!